by Kai Meyer
Merle let out a deep sigh. She watched the foremost mummy soldier raise his left hand and rub his face with it. The gray disappeared, the dark eye rings smeared.
“We are no more dead than you are,” he said. “And before we all slaughter each other, we should at least find out if it would not be more reasonable to work together.” The man spoke with a strong accent, his r’s sounding strangely hard and rolling.
Seth’s fireballs went out. The air over his skull quieted.
“I think I know who they are,” said the Queen. “Merle, do you still remember what you found in the abandoned tent in the abyss of Hell? Before the Lilim appeared and destroyed everything?”
Merle needed a second or two before she realized what the Queen was getting at. The chicken’s claw?
“Yes. Do you still have it?”
In my knapsack.
“Tell Junipa to get it out.”
A moment later Junipa was fumbling with the fastenings of the knapsack.
“Who are you?” Vermithrax asked, and he took a threatening step forward. Seth stepped aside, becoming cautious and perhaps realizing that his illusions were inferior to the fangs and teeth of the lion.
“Spies,” said the false mummy soldier.
Junipa fished the chicken’s claw on its little leather band from Merle’s knapsack and handed it forward to her.
The mummy soldier spotted it at once, as if Merle had waved a glowing torch at him.
“Spies from the kingdom of the Czar,” he said, smiling.
PIRATES
SERAFIN WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF A ROUND PORTHOLE and watching the wonders of the sea bottom move past them. Swarms of fish sparkled in the semidarkness. He could make out undersea forests of bizarre growths and things that might perhaps be plants, perhaps animals.
The submarine that had taken them aboard on the sea witch’s orders was gliding, raylike, through the deep, accompanied by dozens of fire bubbles such as they’d already seen at the witch’s side. The glowing spheres were drawn along to the right and left of the boat like a swarm of comets, covering the sea bottom with a flaring pattern of light and dark.
Dario walked over to him. “Isn’t this incredible?”
Serafin acted as if he’d been snatched from a deep dream. “This boat? Yes … yes, it really is.”
“You don’t sound especially enthusiastic.”
“Have you seen the crew? And that madman who calls himself the captain?”
Dario gave him an amused smile. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”
“What?”
“They’re pirates.”
“Pirates?” Serafin uttered a soft groan. “How do you get that?”
“One of them told me while you were moping around here for hours at a time.”
“I was thinking about Merle,” Serafin said quietly. Then he frowned. “Real pirates?”
Dario nodded, and his grin became wider. Serafin wondered what made his friend so enthusiastic about the fact that they’d fallen into the hands of a band of robbers and murderers. Romantic dreams of piracy, perhaps; the old stories of noble freebooters who crossed the oceans of the world proudly and with no respect for authority.
The news didn’t surprise Serafin especially. Dario’s discovery fit right into the picture. What sort of an ally might they expect from a sea witch? Besides, Captain Calvino commanded his crew with a harshness that bordered on cruelty. And the sailors themselves? Recognizable as cutthroats, even from a distance, dark fellows with wild hair, dirty clothing, and innumerable scars.
Just terrific. Fantastic. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“They pay for the witch’s protection with corpses,” Dario said with relish.
“And I thought we’d all seen enough corpses,” Serafin blazed at him.
Dario flinched. The memory of their flight from Venice and Boro’s death was still fresh in his mind, and the comment obviously pained him. Serafin regretted his sharp retort: Dario’s enthusiasm for the pirates was nothing but a masquerade behind which he hid his true feelings. Indeed, underneath it, he was suffering like all the others over what had happened.
Serafin laid a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry.”
Dario managed a troubled smile. “My mistake.”
“Tell me what else you found out.” In a burst of harsh self-criticism, he added, “At least you were smart enough to find out more about our new ‘friends,’ instead of just staring stupidly out the window.”
Dario nodded briefly, but then his grin was replaced by an uneasy look. He stepped up next to Serafin at the porthole, and both turned their faces to the glass.
“They collect the bodies of their victims in a space in the back part of the boat. But to be honest, I’m not sure there are any ships left up on the surface that could be robbed by pirates. They certainly wouldn’t dare attack the Egyptian war galleys, and as far as I know, there hasn’t been any trade to speak of in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the war.”
Serafin nodded. The Empire had cut all the trade routes. In the deserted harbors there were no more customers for merchants. Like all the others, the traders, together with the crews of their ships, had landed in the mummy factories as slaves.
Dario cast a guarded look back into the room: They were in one of the narrow cabins, along whose bronze-colored walls ran a maze of pipes, artfully worked into extravagant decorations, similar to the plasterwork in Venetian palaces, with the single difference that the patterns here were made of metal and wood. Not for the first time, Serafin wondered whom Captain Calvino had seized the boat from. He most certainly had not designed it himself, for he did not appear to be the kind of man who appreciated beauty. And along with all the functionality of the undersea boat, it was obvious that someone with taste and an understanding of art had been at work here.
Besides the two boys, there were also two sailors in the cabin. One of them was pretending to be asleep in his berth, but Serafin had seen him blink and look in his direction several times. The second man let his legs dangle over the side of his bunk as he whittled the figure of a mermaid from a piece of wood; wood shavings fell into the empty berth below him. There were eight empty beds, and the boys knew that there were several of these crew quarters aboard the boat. Captain Calvino had quartered Serafin and Dario in this cabin, Tiziano and Aristide in another. Eft and Lalapeya were lodged in a double cabin at the end of the central passageway, which ran like a spinal column through the entire boat; it wasn’t far from the captain’s cabin.
At this hour most of the crew members were carrying out their duties in the labyrinthine spaces of the submarine. It was obvious that the two men in the berths had been placed there to keep an eye on the passengers, even if they took pains to appear uninterested. No one kept the boys from wandering around the boat, and yet they didn’t take a step that was not observed. Captain Calvino might be an unscrupulous slave driver, but he was no fool. And not even the sea witch’s unequivocal order to transport his guests to Egypt unharmed kept him from openly conveying his displeasure with that order.
In a whisper, Dario relayed what he’d learned: “The sea witch has placed the boat under her protection for as long as Calvino provides her with the flesh of corpses. They collect victims of shipwrecks and drownings all over the Mediterranean and bring them to the sea witch. The fellow I spoke with told me they dive around under the battlefields of the great sea wars all year long and catch the dead in nets. Appetizing job, eh? Oh, well, anyway, that’s what they do, because piracy isn’t going so well anymore. No one, not even this madman Calvino, wants to get mixed up with the Egyptians. And if he isn’t fishing bodies out of the water, he carries out commissions for the witch. Like getting us to Egypt.”
“Do you know how they got this boat?”
“They said Calvino won it, together with the crew, in a dice game. No idea if that’s true at all. If it is, you could probably figure he cheated, that so-and-so. Have you seen how he stares at Lalapeya?”
“Have you spoken with Tiziano and Aristide?” asked Serafin.
“Of course. They’re wandering around in the boat somewhere and sticking their noses into everything that’s none of their business.”
Serafin’s guilt deepened. The others had immediately started to become familiar with their new surroundings. Only he was spending valuable time indulging in his melancholy thoughts. The uncertainty over what had become of Merle troubled him more strongly the longer they were under way. But he mustn’t let himself lose sight of the most important thing: to bring them all out of this story safe and sound.
“Serafin?”
“Umm.” He blinked as Dario’s face came into focus in front of him again.
“You aren’t responsible for anyone here. Just don’t talk yourself into that.”
“I’m not.”
“I think you are. You led us when we went into the Doge’s palace. But that’s long past. Out here, we’re all in the same”—he grinned crookedly—“in the same boat.”
Serafin sighed, then managed a weak smile. “Let’s go up to the bridge. I’d rather look Calvino in the eye than sit around here not knowing if he’s just given the order to cut all our throats.” As they went to the door together, he called to the two men in the berths, “We’re just going out for a few minutes to sabotage the machinery.”
The sailor with the whittling knife stared in surprise at his comrade, who acted as if he were just awakening from a deep sleep with an unconvincing yawn.
Serafin and Dario made their way quickly down the passageway. Everywhere the sights they saw were similar: pipes and steam ducts, artfully integrated into the richly decorated walls and ceilings and thick with verdigris; oriental carpets torn by heavy boots; the curtains in front of some portholes gnawed by mildew and dampness; and chandeliers missing single crystals and even arms, fallen off at some time and never replaced. The former glory of the boat was long gone to ruin. Wooden moldings were gouged and spoiled with childish whittlings, some actually broken by fighting fists. Here and there glass doors were missing from cupboards and partitions. The ceilings and floor coverings were full of wine and rum spots. On some of the murals, the pirates had blackened teeth and added mustaches.
The bridge was in the top of the submarine, behind a double-sectioned window that looked out into the ocean deep like a pair of eyes. Captain Calvino, clothed in a rust red morning coat with a golden collar, was walking back and forth in front of the windshield, his hands clasped behind his back, arguing excitedly with someone who was blocked from Dario and Serafin’s view by a column. Half a dozen men were working at wheels and levers, which, like most everything aboard, were made of brass; one man sat on an upholstered saddle and was pedaling furiously on a couple of pedals, which drove heaven knew what kind of a machine.
The two boys walked slowly up to the small platform in the front part of the bridge. Calvino did not interrupt his furious pacing for one second. As they approached, they discovered who was with him and quite obviously needling him to a white heat.
Eft saw the two boys at the same time. Her wide mermaid mouth was not covered by its usual mask. The knapsack in which she preserved Arcimboldo’s mirror mask hung over her shoulder, as always, for Eft never let her precious possession out of her sight for a moment.
“I know boats like this,” she said, now turning to Calvino again. “And I know how fast they can be. Faster anyway than what you’re trying to fool us with here.”
“I’ve already told you a thousand times, and I’ll tell you once more,” thundered the captain. The scar that split his lower lip and reached down to his Adam’s apple showed white against his flushed face. “The Egyptians control the sea, and for a long time they haven’t been content to just search for prey on the surface. To go faster, we have to go up, and I will not take that risk. The sea witch’s commission says to take you and these children to Egypt—mad enough, by Neptune!—but she said nothing about the matter of being in such a hurry. So you will kindly leave it to me to decide what speed we travel at.”
“You are a stubborn old goat, Captain, and I’m not the least surprised that you’ve let this marvel of a boat run down this way. We should probably consider ourselves lucky if we get to Egypt at all before your garbage heap of a tub breaks apart.”
Calvino whirled around, came close to Eft, and stopped about six inches away from her. He stretched his scarred face toward her threateningly. Serafin was sure that Eft was now able to smell the remnants of meals in his dark beard. “You may be a woman or a fishwife or the devil knows what, but you will not tell me how to run my boat!”
Eft remained unimpressed, although she must also have seen the saber that dangled from the captain’s belt. Calvino had wrapped his right hand around the grip in his rage, but he hadn’t yet bared the blade. He would doubtless go to that length soon if Eft didn’t back off. What, by all the saints, was she doing, anyway? Did it matter at all whether they reached Egypt today or tomorrow or the day after?
Eft assumed her most charming smile—which in a mermaid looks about as friendly as the open arms of an octopus. Her shark’s teeth gleamed in the light of the gas lamps. “You are a fool, Captain Calvino, and I will tell you why.”
Serafin noticed that the crew members on the bridge pulled their heads a little deeper between their shoulders. They well knew what a storm was going to break over them any moment.
But Calvino was silent, possibly because he was much too flabbergasted. No one had ever dared to speak to him in that tone. His lower lip trembled like the body of an electric eel.
Eft pressed on. “This boat, Captain, was already worth a fortune before the war, more than you and your cut-throats could imagine in your wildest dreams. But today, now that there’s no more sea travel, the boat is of such unimaginable worth that not even the treasuries of the suboceanic kingdoms would have been enough for it.”
Now she’s overdoing it, Serafin thought, but at the same time he saw that Calvino was frowning and listening carefully. Eft was a little closer to her goal: She’d made him curious.
“You’ve been on board too long, Captain,” she continued her harangue, and now the sailors were unmistakably pricking up their ears. “You’ve forgotten how things look in the world up there. You and your people have let this boat and its art treasures go to ruin while you sail through the world’s oceans and look for lost treasure. Yet you’ll find the greatest treasure of all here, right under your behind, and you have nothing better to do than turn it into a scrap heap without equal and look on while your crew ruins it a little more day by day.”
Calvino’s face was still hovering a few inches away from hers, as if frozen in space. “The greatest treasure of all you say?” Now his voice sounded softer and more controlled than before.
“Certainly—as long as you don’t care that it’s rotted like an old piece of plank on the shore of some island or other.”
“Hmm,” said Calvino. “You think I’m … untidy?”
“I think,” Eft said in a friendly voice, “you are the biggest slob between here and the Arctic Circle, and that in every respect. All the more difficult for me to point out to you your obvious mistakes!”
Oh my, oh my, oh my, Serafin thought.
Dario sucked in his breath audibly. “Now she’s gone completely crazy,” he whispered to his friend.
Captain Calvino stared, wide-eyed, at Eft. His thumbs nervously polished the pommel of his saber, while his thoughts doubtless circled around murder and manslaughter; around fishwife filet; around a paper-weight made of the jaws of a mermaid.
“Captain?” Eft tilted her head and smiled.
“What?” The word rose growling out of his throat like sulfur vapor from a
volcano crater.
“I haven’t by any chance offended you, have I?”
Two sailors whispered to each other, and before the two knew it, Calvino was beside them and barking at them with such a gigantic explosion of epithets that even Serafin and Dario, both former street boys from the alleys of Venice, blushed to the tips of their ears.
“Someone should write this down,” Dario said out of the side of his mouth.
Calvino started, and his eyes fell on the boys. For a moment it looked as though he was going to let loose his fury on them, too, but then he swallowed his vituperations and turned again to Eft. Dario let go of his breath.
The outburst of rage had calmed the captain a little, and he could now look Eft in the face again without stabbing her with his eyes at the same time. “You are … impertinent.”
Eft was obviously suppressing a grin, which was probably a good thing, for that is not a beautiful sight in a mermaid. “This boat is an unparalleled disgrace, Captain. It stinks, it’s dirty, and it’s neglected. And if I were you—and thanks be to the Lords of the Deep I’m not—I’d make sure that my men brought it into line in a hurry. Every pipe, every picture, every carpet. And then I’d lean back for a moment and enjoy the idea of being one of the richest men in the world.”
Serafin watched the words seep into Captain Calvino’s consciousness and spread their entire import. One of the richest men in the world. Serafin wondered if Eft knew what she was talking about. On the other hand, you’d have had to be a fool not to recognize what value this submarine had. In times like these it was priceless—if also, and Calvino might overlook that in his greed, literally beyond price, for there was no one left who could have bought it.
But presumably the captain would not have sold his boat for any price in the world anyhow. Much more, it was the knowledge of the value of his vessel, the sudden recognition of his wealth, that roused his enthusiasm. He’d been aboard for too long, and as so often happens when one has something around day after day, he’d forgotten how valuable it was.